


Mother’s love in the poems: ‘Mother Any Distance’ and ‘Praise Song For my Mother’

by field_mouse (ZephyrEubuleus)



Category: Essay - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29852337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZephyrEubuleus/pseuds/field_mouse
Summary: an essay i wrote for gcse. its not very good.





	Mother’s love in the poems: ‘Mother Any Distance’ and ‘Praise Song For my Mother’

Mother any distance

Mother, any distance greater than a single span  
requires a second pair of hands.  
Youth, reporting metres, centimetres back to base, then leaving  
up come to help me measure windows, pelmets, doors,  
the acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors.

You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape, recording  
lenthe stairs, the line still feeding out, unreeling  
years between us. Anchor. Kite.

I space-walk through the empty bedrooms, climb  
the ladder to the loft, to breaking point, where something  
has to give;  
two floors below your fingertips still pinch  
the last one-hundredth of an inch...I reach  
towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky  
to fall or fly.

~Simon Armitage

Praise song for my mother

You were  
water to me  
deep and bold and fathoming

You were  
moon’s eye to me  
pull and grained and mantling

You were  
sunrise to me  
rise and warm and streaming

You were  
the fishes red gill to me  
the flame trees’ spread to me  
the crab’s leg/the fried plantain smell  
replenishing replenishing

Go to your wide futures, you said.

~Grace Nichols

In the poem Mother Any Distance, the poet, Simon Armitage, talks about how he is moving away from home, and how his mother still holds on to him quite tightly, and how she must release him in order for him to soar. In the poem Praise Song for my Mother, the poet, Grace Nichols, talks about how her mother was always a great comfort to her. Both poems depict familial bonds; a mother’s love, but more so specifically how a mother’s love can deepen as one ages. 

In the first stanza of Mother Any Distance, how she is still helping him as he is moving away from home, moving away from her, his mother. The stanza looks deeply into the practical, literal side of his mother. She is his partner in life, his friend, perhaps to even go as far as to be a best friend, and helps him to do things he can’t on his own, which is suggested in the lines “any distance greater than a single span, requires a second pair of hands”. His mother is practical, measuring the “windows, pelmets, doors”. We measure new property we have just acquired, so it makes the reader think about whether this is the poet’s new home, his first home perhaps. The way the poet writes about it makes it sound large, like an empty mansion, sitting on the edge of a field, the edge of a prairie, with “acres” of walls and “prairies” for floors. 

In the second stanza, the poets gives the image of the mother holding onto a spool of tape, letting the son go farther and farther away. The poet compares his mother to an anchor while he compares himself to a kite. We get the sense that as the years pass, "unreeling years between us," the tape measure gets stretched more and more to its breaking point, as the son goes farther and farther away. The narrator’s mother comes to his house to help him with measurements holding the tape while he walks away shows him moving away while she still holds on. This is a clear metaphor for how the mother is standing still while he moves away, but how eventually his mother will have no choice but to let go of her end of the tape. When the poet puts his mother at the “zero-end”, we see that she is the base, she is the centre and the support. She’s the starting point, the spawn point. The poet describes a literal scene: a mother and son measuring up a new house; his new house, but we quickly realise it has the deeper meaning of a boy growing up and looking back at his mother, only to realise they never quite completely parted. 

In the last stanza of the poem Mother Any Distance, the poet writes: “leaving up the stairs”, but they are still connected. First, the tape is a metaphorical umbilical cord. It is a symbol of their attachment, their literal connection. Of course, an umbilical cord is something that is essential for a baby’s existence, something to pass on nourishment, however, we all already know that the umbilical cord does eventually have to be severed, just as how his close-knit bond with his mother must one day come to an end. “Towards a hatch that opens on an endless sky to fly or fall”, endless sky shows the poet knows that there are endless possibilities to his newfound independence, and an endless metaphorical sky to explore. “The last one-hundredth of an inch”. This is the limit of the tape measure. The mother's fingertips “still pinch”, still, being of importance because to still be doing an action means continuing to do the action.“ To fall or fly” is clear bird imagery, suggesting that the poet is just about to leave his mother’s nest; her protection, and does not know if he will plummet to his death or soar off into a bright and cheery future. The conclusion of the poem is ambiguous, but reflects a real experience most of us undergo, not knowing where our lives will lead; whether independence will lead us to “fall or fly”. 

In the first three stanzas of Praise Song for my Mother, the poet compares her mother to calming things from nature such as water, the moon and the sunrise. These metaphors give the reader the impression that the mother is akin to mother nature, and that she is as comforting and calm as the words used is make up the poem. This acts as a metaphor for how the poet’s mother is like home and nature and is very calming and how the poet’s mother reminds the poet of many pleasant things. 

In the fourth stanza of Praise Song for my Mother, the poet explains to us, the reader, how her mother is culturally important to her: she lists things from her childhood, just as a child would have, because children often love list making. Crabs legs are a common treat for children in the Caribbean, where the poet, Grace Nichols, is from. They are sweet but salty from the ocean, just as her childhood may have been. Flame Trees are large and colourful and full of life, just her mother would have been. The smell of frying and fried plantains is very distinct, truly unlike any other, very sweet and cheery, just as her childhood in the culturally diverse Caribbean may have been like.

In the poem Praise Song for my Mother, the poet ends the poem with the line “go to your wide futures, you said”. This line is of importance because of the poet’s choice of words. The word wide insinuates any number of results, whereas the word web may be interpreted in any number of ways, like a fisherman's net, flung out wide. This line is also the only line we have that is spoken by the mother to the poet, and this could mean how this is the main piece of advice from her mother that she remembers.

In conclusion, mothers’ love can be expressed in a multitude of ways, and these poets have chosen to demonstrate their mothers’ love quite differently. Grace Nichols demonstrates her mother’s love with the ways that her mother was always calming to her. Simon Armitage demonstrates his mother’s love with the way she always helped him with things. Both poets’ mothers have expressed how they can fall or fly.


End file.
